Maastricht No. 13 / Maestricht

A communication from Pol Herman to BSI (e-mail of 21 December 2021) noted: "Searching in the on-line archives of the Historisch Centrum Limburg at Maastricht, I saw that there existed a picture of a baptismal font that was offered to a museum in Maastricht." The communication further noted that it was from the Historisch Centrum Limburg at Maastricht (Archiefstuk 657) [www.historischcentrumlimburg.nl] [accessed 18 December 2021] "Foto van een te koop aangeboden gedeelte van een doopvont, naar verluidt aangetroffen op een zolder te Maastricht, 1911" illustrated the fragment (30 x 25 cm) of a font claimed to have been found in a Maastricht attic and offered for sale in November 1911 for 500 francs. BSI commented to Pol Herman (e-mail 2 January 2022): "Thank you very much for sharing this, Pol. If I may speculate from the old photograph... It is a font, or, rather. it was a font, originally, but it has had a second life. The side hole and the notches at the top would suggest to me that it has had a second life in a garden or farm, possibly as a planter, as many of the rejected medieval fonts did. The carving on the sides and the protruding heads preclude the object having been originally a mortar or grain measure. Some of the latter may have a couple of details of decoration but not to this level. It is also later, 16thC+ when some garden ornaments and some fonts begin to share design and decoration, some of them being almost interchangeable. The broad metal 'cinch' indicates that the basin had already cracked and was being further protected by the band, quite a common fix. Everything we see in the picture suggests to me that it was originally a font, and that it had been put to later use in a garden or farm." A further communication from Pol Herman (e-mail 19 June 2022) remarked: "I came to the conclusion that this is a medieval Mosan mortar."